Beowulf (12A)

According to rotten tomatoes 195 reveiwers gave Beowulf an average 70% review. Time out is much closer to the mark with 2 out of 5. There were a handful of great action scenes but overall a terrible film.

This is a cracking film, even on DVD without the 3D effects. The actors do a brilliant job, as do the animators. I can't belive I keep reading 'the eyes of the characters were dead'. This is a developing technology; I just didn't get that 'the characters are creepy' vibe. This is a brilliant film and I can't believe that opinion is so didvided.

Fantastic....watched it last night on dvd and was very impressed and thrilled, especially the dragon sequence. Hopkins is superb, along with Brendon Gleeson and of course Big Boy Winstone as the flawed hero. Not overly impressed with Jolie though, and it might drag for younger viewers, but well worth buying for £3 on dvd at HMV!!!

i think it was a good idea making an animated version for the little kids who can't see the real film because it's 15+

Zemeckis’ “Beowulf�loses the poetry of the great poem in it’s translation to the 3-D digital motion-capture technology to the screen.The look of the past can be replicated in the images,but not the essence of the vision,the ancient stones,the sacral light,the fantastical elements wrapped up in the mythopeic universe.These myths are an essential part of a tragic tale whose theme is:man at war with a hostile world and his inevitable defeat by Time.The poem was recalling a pagan past but from the perspective of a Christian worldview but the poet still celebrates its vanished power,in which fate rules all and man’s courage alone confers nobility.In the new world death and defeat are ultimately defeated by Christ:�The time of heroes is dead, the Christ God has killed it,leaving humankind with nothing but weeping martyrs, fear and shame�.The thousand year old poem was itself looking back at a lost world. The poem captures this unbearably moving disenchantment.Splinters of that primordial light are embodied in the myths of the poem. There is an excellent cast of actors.Ray Winstone a gutsy if cockneyfied Beowulf, Anthony Hopkins seems almost fully realized as Hrothgar,Angelina Jolie as the seductive monster’s mother,who slept with the old king and also seducing Beowulf, Malkovitch is perfectly cast as Unferth(dead eyes to match),Crispin Glover as the pitiable Grendel,who brings terror to the mead hall and lastly Brendan Gleason as Wealthow,Beowulf’s second in command.Beowulf is vain,proud and boastful.He comes to Denmark from Geatland(Sweden) to kill the voracious monster ravaging the Viking land.There is much gore and violence,digitized cleavage and a naked Beowulf.Zemeckis’ Beowulf departs from the original story in order to tie up lose threads and generate narrative continuity and tension.Beowulf has to change,be something other than just a brave and virtuous hero.The movie’s solution is to have Grendel’s mother corrupt him by playing a sexually powerful witch-woman.Beowulf pays the penalty when he atones for his sins 50 years later.He is the monster of his pride:� We men are the monsters now�.He atones for his sins by fighting the evil dragon in a climactic battle that results in his death. “Beowulf� fails because it it does not create a mythical universe.It has no transfiguring vision. It seizes upon an ancient tale,whose invisible roots run deep in our psyches, and uses it to construct an entertainment of computer game proportions.It pulls a tame story out of a wild fable,it decouples the cosmology of a myth producing high-tech kitsch,without the depth of those dim and distant realms. The funeral of Beowulf should be like the echo of an ancient dirge,a memory brought over the hills,far-off and hopeless,an echo of an echo.Even with IMAX 3-D.

Has to be said that this was entertaining crap. Watched the whole thing thinking "hang on, that wasn't in the book!". I'm going to dig the book out of the loft and re-read it just so the saga remains as it should be in my mind. As animations go it was a good piece but the eyes are the windows to the soul, And the characters eyes were souless rendering the characters with a lifeless aire. Still impressive though, especially the last scenes with the dragon. Has to be Sean Bean's body or maybe Ray Winston as he see himself. Magic mirror anyone?

I hated this film!!! I was so looking forward to an incredible epic film based on an epic poem from proud English history, and yeah, the graphics were cool and new, some fight scenes were engaging BUT OH MY GOD could the script be any more cringe-worthy?? I hated the way they changed the story - Beowulf was meant to be an honourable hero. With all the money put into this and the amazing cast, I think they missed a fantastic opportunity to blow us away. Yeah yeah, amazing 3D and all that, but the plot, characters, script was as 2D as the early Simpsons episodes. No, that's too much of a compliment.

this film was great i would reccomend it to every1!!! x

Just awfeul. How could such famous actors take part in such a fiasco? The whole thing was a mish-mash of themes borrowed from other stories.. The language, story and acting were atrocious, with a couple of minor exceptions, viz. Jolie and one other whose name escaped me. But we can only thank the directors for the dreadful acting, as the stars have proved their abilities in many other ways. Cannot recommend it. Has set Beowulf-studies back by decades.

The CGI for me was a load of rubbish and so too was most of the film. Only the end fight against the dragon was worth watching.